An article in today’s Washington Post quotes a distinguished American academic as saying that – if … the voters pull a Truman [i.e. if McCain-Palin confound the polls and the pundits by winning], that is going to be the end of whatever shred of credibility they have left. That’s right. If McCain wins after all, [...]
Senator McCain and the Republicans over the water, and the Tories over here, bear-led (the appropriate term in present circumstances) by Cameron, a rather battered Osborne, and Hague, are demanding cuts in government spending — for example, the Tories' advocacy of a freeze on local council spending, and the GOP calling for a freeze in [...]
One or two of Senator McCain's pronouncements on policy issues and other matters during the third and final debate raised some eyebrows. Healthcare: McCain berates Obama for his proposed compulsory universal healthcare programme, preferring to give everyone a $5,000 tax credit and leaving it to individuals to spend it on health insurance if they feel [...]
The 2008 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Martti Ahtisaari couldn't be more welcome or more spectacularly well earned. I have been a respectful admirer since I was involved for a few years in the Namibia independence negotiations. Ahtisaari, an experienced, calm, unpompous, shrewd, bulky Finn, was the United Nations Administrator appointed to represent the UN [...]
Two things in particular struck me as I watched all 90-odd minutes of the second US presidential debate between Senators McCain and Obama, held last night in Tennessee and available now on the Web (e.g.) here: first, the ever-widening gulf between political perceptions in (most of) the US and in (most of) Europe; and, secondly, [...]
We returned, J and I, on Sunday from another cruise, this time aboard the biggest and newest ship in the UK cruise fleet, P&O's Ventura. Our private ship's log, or diary, of the two weeks afloat, is here. You can see a selection of the photographs I took, as we wended our way round the [...]
